I like to think I’ve outgrown superhero comics. That’s not true at all, though. It’s badly-written superhero comics that I do not enjoy – note that the definition of ‘badly-written’ does not extend to characterization that contradicts past continuity, storytelling directions that take radically opposite directions from the characters’ past- heck, I can even overlook sixty years of complicated continuity. It just means that when I see the writer insulting my basic level of intelligence with his dreck, or when my minimal requirements of entertainment are not being met because of the detracting elements of the creators’ personal quirks, I lose my patience and either throw whatever it is I am reading across the room and fume, or, as the case mostly is nowadays, just delete the offending cbr files from my disk and get along with my life. It’s that simple.

Case in point – Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America. I am willing to go on record and say that the ten-odd issues I read last year were The Worst Comicbooks Ever. Any comic in which Red Tornado is called “Reddy”, and has a story arc in which three characters sit around a table looking at photographs and passing slavishly fawning comments about each other deserves to be pissed on. The One More Day brouhaha in Spider-man turned me off because the premise appeared completely brain-dead ( Read this for complete details. ) I tried reading Planet Hulk/World War Hulk, but lost interest the minute I realised the ‘World’ in ‘World War’ means Manhattan. X-Men Messiah Complex was interesting for about 2 pages, before I gave up.

I like to think I’ve outgrown superheroes. But occasionally I am reminded of how much I really love reading them. The Sinestro Corps War, for instance. This was a crossover between the Green Lantern titles last year, and after having heard good things about it from various sources, I gave the scans a try. While the writing is clunky in parts, the series strikes just the right balance of continuity-enslavement i.e drawing upon the Green Lantern stories that the writer Geoff Johns ( for the most part) grew up reading, the gosh-wow factor of seeing events that affect the status quo, and a heady good-vs-evil conflict. I liked the way the tension builds up throughout the series, when all odds seem to favour the upstart Yellow Corps, when Superman-Prime is freed from his space-prison ( not that I didn’t see it coming ) and rendezvouses with the secret leaders of the Corps. I totally dug how two Alan Moore short stories from the eighties, muhuahaha, yeah, stories I read in my childhood, are major plot-points in the arc. It’s also gratifying to know that the entire Sinestro Corps war is actually the second of a trilogy of Green-Lantern-Corps tales ( Rebirth being the first, and next year’s Black Night the last ).

Another Geoff Johns title I enjoyed thoroughly was Booster Gold, the new ongoing series. At least the first six issues of it, collectively called 52 Pick-up ( the reference is to Elmore Leonard AND the weekly DC miniseries). I never really liked the character of BG, except when he was used as a basis for comedy, as in the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire run of JLA, and grudgingly like his plotline in 52. But in this series, Johns manages to infuse the character with a near-Shakespearean level of pathos. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but still. The twist that Johns introduces is this series is that Booster Gold is probably the sole reason why the world and its heroes are saved from total annhilation, because he is a behind-the-scenes worker in the timestream, flitting in and out of the past, present and future to make sure no supervillain damages existence by tampering with the natural order of time. The catch is that nobody can know about his heroism, and he has to maintain his klutzy image throughout. The six-issue arc sees Booster Gold averting a meeting between Sinestro and someone who would go on to become an important character in the DC Universe, saving the grandparents of another famous character by teaming up with ( of all people ) Jonah Hex, trying to ensure his own existence by hooking up his ancestors, and making a tragicomic cameo in one of the DC Universe’s most chilling shoot-out ( Hint: “Smile” ) I am hooked.

Speaking of characters I don’t like, another one happened to be Iron Fist, a kung-fu expert from the Marvel Universe whose existence was based on the success of martial arts movies of the seventies. I used to find Iron Fist a pointless character, with occasional redeemable guest-appearance potential ( See: Civil War, Daredevil ). Enter the three-man team of writers Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction and Spanish artist David Aja, whose ongoing series The Immortal Iron Fist KICKS EFFING ASS. Brubaker is a writer who comes from a crime/noir background, as is evident from his work on Gotham Central, Sleeper and Criminal, but of late, he has excelled in mainstream superheroes, especially the kind of gritty street-level superheroics of Daredevil. Fraction is a demented ( I think) indie comicbook writer whose Casanova is a acid-trip of a Bond movie. Together, the duo mesh the character of Danny Rand, the Iron Fist into something so diabolically cool that it makes me wonder about the potential of other, poorly-handled characters that have faded away or don’t really get too much attention. The term “Kungfu Billionaire” is the hook, and the creators proceed to take the best of Shaw Brothers films, a dash of Marvel Universe super-villainy ( Hail Hydra, indeed! ) and pump it up with back-story, tonnes and tonnes of it. Turns out, there has been sixty six Iron Fists throughout history, every generation spawning a hero who has to undergo the same rite of passage in the mystical city of K’un L’un to gain the power of the Fist. We are introduced to an immense cast of characters, both old and new, including Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing, Danny Rand’s former colleagues, The Steel Serpent, an old foe who has gained a new way of augmenting his strength; Orson Randall, Rand’s predecessor to the legacy of Iron Fist is still alive, and is being hunted by those who target Rand’s company. The first arc, called ‘The Last Iron Fist Story’ is about Randall, and how he guides Danny to recognise his destiny, and his potential. The second arc takes Rand back to K’un L’un, where he learns that the city is one of seven cities of Heaven, and he has to participate in a contest that will determine the fate of his city. The bizarre cast of characters in this arc includes the Crane Mother, a fearsome crone, Lei Kung the thunderer, Rand’s master, and a breakout character called The Prince of Orphans, John Aman, who was created in the 1930s by Bill Everett as a character infused with superhuman powers by Tibetan monks and was reintroduced by Brubaker and Fraction into this series, a move that reeks of genius, I daresay.

Truth be told, none of the concepts introduced are too unfamiliar or ‘out there’ – the first thing Neil Gaiman did after coming onboard Spawn was to introduce a similar generational idea to the existence of Spawn, and before him, there was Moore and his Swamp-Thing-as-plant-elemental-throughout-the-ages retcon. ( Did Samit Basu indulge in similar gimmicry in Devi? Anyone? ) What propels The Immortal Iron Fist to greatness is the seamless blend of these ideas with David Aja’s artwork. The guy is good, bringing a smoky atmosphere to the proceedings – his work brings to mind the dynamic photorealism of Michael Lark and John Cassaday with the atmospheric stylings of Guy Davis. I am in the middle of the second arc, The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, which will conclude soon, and it’s a pity the trio of creators will move on after issue 16.

Now that psasidhar brought with 32 kgs of my comics last week, I am tempted to reread Starman and Usagi Yojimbo, masterful series both. SINGLE ISSUES, woo hoo! And there’s also the near-complete run of Peter David’s Hulk, and the new Punisher MAX issues, and the Invincible trades, and…

I like to think I’ve outgrown superheroes. Hah, what a laugh!